Coronavirus: Boris Johnson puts the UK under – practical – house arrest
Johnson: The prime minister seemed close to incoherence during his broadcast.
Can anybody remember what Boris Johnson said about 2020? It was right after he was elected, last December, I think.
He was trying to tell us that this would be a bonanza year for everybody. Days of wine and honey – or some such.
Famous last words.
For today (March 23) he has told us that we all have to stay in our homes in a bid to contain the threat of the killer coronavirus pandemic. He said:
People must stay at home except for shopping for basic necessities, daily exercise, any medical need and travelling to and from essential work.
Shops selling non-essential goods will also be shut and gatherings in public of more than two people who do not live together prohibited.
Other premises including libraries, playgrounds and outdoor gyms, and places of worship must also close immediately.
Parks will remain open for exercise but gatherings will be dispersed.
The government is also stopping all social events, including weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies – but funerals will be allowed.
If people do not follow the rules police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and dispersing gatherings.
He says he’ll review these restrictions in three weeks’ time and will lift them as soon as he can.
Given the quality of his decisions up to this point, I think that’s a promise to lift them too soon. Johnson will want to get the herd back to work as soon as possible, to make money for him and his cronies – and that makes it more likely that he’ll put us straight back in danger.
So we may end up in a position where – despite being out of our minds with boredom – we end up having to ignore any such lifting, for our own safety.
That will depend on the advice from the real experts, and I think we’ll all have to pay careful attention to what they say, and to developments in other countries. I don’t think we’ll be safe again until the end of the year at the earliest.
Source: Coronavirus: Strict new curbs on life in UK announced by PM – BBC News
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About time too. Three weeks is too soon. The restrictions should be in place for at least three months.
This is the reason I’m concerned he’ll try to lift them before it’s safe.
No mention of people doing voluntary work for charities. No mention of Jobcentres. Do JSA claimants still have to sign on? Do they still have to do jobsearch to continue receiving JSA? Have Sanctions been suspended? Will JSA be paid automatically without need for a signature? Will Post Offices and/or Pay Point stores still be open? If not then how do I pay my Water and Council Tax? Will laundrettes still be open or do I wear dirty clothes for the next few months?
What about shopping for food and picking prescriptions up? Is he planning for us to starve to death or die from medical complaints? What a total cockwomble.
No – you’re allowed to do those things, as long as you don’t do it often.
How does BoJob expect to enforce this when his party have been butchering police numbers for ten years?
https://thegreatcritique.wordpress.com/2020/03/23/lockdown-it-is-then-johnson-um-couple-of-things/
Well Trump is already wavery on the lockdowns in the USA, like Johnson he’s more worried about the economy (and his personal money and businesses) than people. Our very own mini-Trump will be just the same.
To be fair to him, I don’t think he wants to turn the UK into a huge prison-HMP UK-because it’ll mess up business utterly and cut the money supply off. I do fear that after the virus is dealt with, he will keep at least some of his emergency powers using Brexit as an excuse.
I think that is a valid concern.
meanwhile , some of us are still having real problems accessing food. supermarkets are so mowed down by it all their systems aren’t working properly. as one who comes under the elderly disabled, vulnerable umbrella. i have spent hours online trying to access a delivery slot. sometimes i did it , did the order only to find errors as i checked out. o k ring the numbers given.. cant get through, some you sit there for hours waiting to hear a voice say “can i help you?” the one designated for us elderly/disabled/vulnerables tells you to ring back later. yet another had that annoying old fashioned engaged tone. still no joy. finally the day comes when ,oh joy, we can get a slot……. so we tick the one we would like spend an hour or more finding our way around the grocery pages then come to the way out of this virtual store..the checkout…… all goes well at first until you get through your banks page their confirmation of you are who you say you are. normally thats it , but no,. as if things aren’t difficult enough for us an extra page pops up. it says at the top your bank requires extra verification (my bank knows nothing about this btw) but there’s nothing on that page to do with my bank/ nowhere to go. nothing to click thats anything to do with that particular supermarket… and its not just one. Sainsburys/Asda/Morrisons/ Tesco …end results the same. try and contact them …back to the unanswered phones. email them.. no answer, online chat that a couple of them have. by time you’ve supplied your name, and about 5 other details like phone number etc.. the robots gone. and your left fuming n hurling abuse at a non existent virtual person. o k so to today.. the day for special extra slots for us elderly etc people.. i got a slot quite easily did the usual. ticking etc. sorted another order out. went to go through checkout……. same thing again. though it did keep your order there. but not the slot…. keeps telling you there’s an ERR_ SOMETHING OR OTHER. then in another box. it says the system isn’t working/. (Helloooooooo??? I knowwwwwwwww?? ) and in another(this is the scary part) user.. someone may be using your logonId……..so i go to change my sign in details…was a right carry on and at one point i got locked out….finally managed to find the “I’ve forgotten my password” thing. got the usual email did the usual it told me to do . i tried so many new passwords i hadn’t used before till in the end i put something stupid like yourallidiots66 (no thats not my password……) ..that it finally accepted. and i was in …with frazzled nerves ill grant you) but i was on the site and there was my order….i was at the end of my tether. of course i lost my slot.. this happened 3 times over the course of the day. interspersed with calls to my bank having my cards checked etc……. finally i had had enough. i live alone. with my dog, who bless him, got the brunt of my temper. i even got locked out of my account for a couple of hours till i fiddled out how to get back in again. still i cant get past the darned checkout and still i cant get hold of someone to tell them that there’s a problem.. the system they all seem to be using simply cant carry the traffic… so no good putting extra slots up for us old/disabled and vulnerable. if we cant pay for the things,(its a form of torture putting pictures of food in front of us but not allowed to buy it, let alone eat it ).,,,,,,,, and cant get the orders through. I’ve even emailed 2 of them but got no answers. luckily my dogs walker is going to Sainsbury’s tomorrow in the hope she can get most of the stuff on my shopping list which was available online this evening but may not be tomorrow lunch time. and what she gets probably wont last more than a week IF I AM LUCKY) AND IT WILL START ALL OVER AGAIN ONLY THIS TIME EVERYONE WILL BE ON PRACTICALLY full LOCK-DOWN……. if not total lock-down.. …
incidentally.. i dont have transport of my own nor do my 2 kids who are also on full isolation.my daughter lives near to a store so can get most of what she needs herself if shes careful. but my son doesn’t,.often relies on his mates or me to get him things he cant get online at a supermarket. but hes going to be without altogether .he,like all those on benefits, live from one payday to the next in flats with little storage space to store things in.
and here i am still up at after 3 am, mind buzzing.. knowing there’s no solution till this thing (which i have a feeling has been man-made as a way to cull the world population. ) is overcome.
My Son works for a large electronic manufacturing multinational corporation of Japanese origin at Bridgend (making non-essential items) who at the time of writing are refusing to close their factories production lines. So much for social responsibility – if they don’t turn up for work they will probably face disciplinary action or the sack. So they are purposefully concentrating groups of workers in a factory on a two shift system consisting of between 150 to 300 staff I estimate. So much for social distancing and responsibility to the local community. Such action in light of the current situation can only be deemed totally reckless by the management. But then we only have a ‘half baked’ lock down as directed by an incompetent PM acting too late in a situation he has lost control of.